“Come for the aliens, stay for the art!” sums up the compelling reasons to visit Roswell, New Mexico—a mecca for UFO culture and contemporary art.
Field Report: Roswell, New Mexico
Elevation: 3,573 feet
Population: 47,390
Town Etymology: In 1869, Van C. Smith, a sometime miner, sometime professional gambler, or a “businessman” by most accounts, arrived at the confluence of the Rio Hondo and Rio Pecos where, with partner Aaron Wilburn, he constructed two adobe buildings, thus founding the town. He named it for his father, Roswell Smith, a prominent lawyer back East.
Fun Fact: Roswell is a site for notable and record-breaking goings up, and fallings down. Between 1930 and 1942, inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket Robert H. Goddard launched over fifty experimental rockets from Roswell, with one reaching nearly 10,000 feet in altitude. In 1947, a severe thunderstorm brought down a mysterious wreck of silver foil, launching a series of coverups and conspiracy theories, the so-called “Roswell Incident.” In 2012, skydiver Felix Baumgartner broke records floating up in a helium balloon to a height of twenty-four miles before free-falling back to Earth and parachuting into Roswell.
Roswell, New Mexico’s identity as a mecca for aliens and UFO culture is a quite recent invention. It wasn’t until 1992, with the advent of the International UFO Museum and Research Center, that the city embraced its unusual and unique tourist draw—forty-five years after the “Roswell Incident.”
Before that, Roswell was, and still is, a cattle town and agricultural center. Before that, it was an important trading center between the Comanche, Kiowa, and Mescalero Apache.
But since 1967, Roswell has also held an important place in the contemporary art world, and that is due to the efforts of one Donald B. Anderson, who founded the Roswell Artist-in-Residence program. The residency brings in contemporary artists to live and work, fully funded, for a year in Roswell, resulting in a remarkable network of international artists with a connection to this place, as well as an incredible collection of contemporary artwork that resides here. This has created a unique contemporary art presence in Roswell—and a compelling reason to visit this corner of New Mexico.
As one former RAiR artist, Debra Smith (2009-10), likes to say, “Come for the aliens, stay for the art!”
Art + Culture
Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art
The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art holds more than 500 contemporary artworks by the artists-in-residence who have passed through Roswell between 1967 and the present day. These are displayed in a dynamic salon-style hang throughout a 22,0000-square-foot exhibition space. Many of the works are large-scale and physically impressive, the result of artists reaching their zenith in the studio, taking full advantage of the “gift of time” that the residency proffers. As such, the Anderson collection provides a unique and fascinating slice of what is and was contemporary art through the years. You could spend hours here and continue discovering new things.
Roswell Museum
The Roswell Museum opened its doors in 1937 as a Federal Art Center through the Works Progress Administration and is one of only a handful of FACs around the country still in operation. The city-run museum’s remarkable permanent collection contains more than 11,000 works of art and historical objects, including early Santa Fe and Taos modernists, international contemporary artists, and other regional artists—with many surprises and delights among them. Thoughtfully curated and presented temporary exhibitions, including solo shows by current RAiR artists, round out their excellent programming.
Bone Springs Art Space
Bone Springs Art Space is a gallery, art studio, fine art gift shop, and education facility in an old three-story Conoco oil and gas warehouse downtown. Ceramic artist Miranda Howe (RAiR 2012-13) saw a need for an independent gallery space in Roswell, bought the warehouse in 2014, and opened Bone Springs in 2018. A vital hub for the arts in Roswell, Bone Springs puts on three to four exhibitions a year in the space, offers work by current and former residents for sale in the gift shop, and Howe hosts clay workshops and kids’ and adult programming year-round.
Miniatures and Curious Collections Museum
Housed in a 1940s-era office and stationery company, the Miniatures and Curious Collections Museum is an enchanting and unique site, lovingly tended by locals, with an emphasis on dollhouses, miniatures, and oddities. Kids will love the dollhouse play area while parents peruse the unique gift shop. Expect endless oohs and aahs to be triggered by the adorableness of it all. (Read more about the MCCM here.)
Other spots for art include the Gallery at Main Street Arts, where you can find works by local artists in all media. And you can find a collection of alien-themed art at the International UFO Museum and Research Center, all a bit naïve and a lot visionary.
Stay + Rest
If you’re not lucky enough to have landed a spot as a resident artist in Roswell, which is obviously the best place to stay in town, then you’ll need to find a hotel…
Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn: in Roswell, you will find the usual array of hotels and motels, of varying quality, but all pretty unspecial as far as I’ve seen. You’ve got your national chains—La Quinta, Hampton Inn, etc—along with little family-run motels—the Frontier Inn, Western Inn—and, ultimately, they all get the job done. Maybe just decide based on how well you like their particular little-green-men décor outside!
There is also a decent selection of Airbnbs and Vrbos in Roswell, which, if you’re looking for something more unique, might be the way to go. Look out for farm stays and ranch stays, where you can get some real local flavor!
Sustenance
Antigua Cocina Mexicana: This spot for classic and authentic Mexican cuisine is worth the visit alone. Think: enmoladas de pollo, with a complex and savory mole sauce; cochinita pibil, marinated pork wrapped in banana leaves; and chile en nogada, with its creamy walnut sauce topped with bright pomegranate seeds. Follow your meal with a smoky mezcal.
Stellar Coffee Company is the place to go for coffee and community. Located right in the heart of Roswell, Stellar shows local art, has a collection of games, puzzles, and books, and brews a mean dark roast.
Out on the east side of town, you shouldn’t be surprised to find an actual cowboy or two sidled up to the lunch counter at the Cowboy Cafe. A popular spot for breakfast and lunch, their huevos rancheros are kickass and their pancakes absolute heaven.
Gift shops abound in downtown Roswell, most centered around extraterrestrial and metaphysical themes, ranging from hyper-kitsch to folksy. Eclectic Treasurez, I find, is the vibe-iest, with stones arranged by type and color in sculptural, tiered displays, and well-fed, adequately tolerant shop cats that oversee all transactions with a measure of jaded disinterest.
The UFO Museum makes an effort to inform and entertain, and with its extensive research library, you could spend a whole afternoon perusing the “evidence.” But you won’t fail to notice the imitators right down the street. Don’t feel that you must partake in one of the Roswell tourist traps—but it is a bit of a rite of passage. They range from low-tech photo-op dioramas of alien autopsies to high-tech VR simulations. If your thing is low-budget “immersive,” black-light wow-factor, or Meow Wolf knock-off at a dollar-a-minute ticket price, you’ll find the experience for you!
Unexplained Phenomena
The “Roswell Incident” is pretty well sewn up, if you care to believe the true story, but there are other myths and legends in the Roswell area. Nearby is the Bottomless Lakes State Park, with a series of nine discrete, deep lakes formed by sinkholes. Legend has it that objects dropped in the lakes may turn up again in distant locales. One oft-repeated tale tells of a horse that drowned in one lake, but whose body came up from another.
Another odd sighting in the Roswell area is the appearance of a massive stone-like structure that seems to be situated in the middle of an ordinary field. Ancient alien architecture? A modernist monolith? It’s The Henge, built in 1963 by artist Herb Goldman at the behest of Don Anderson. Goldman’s six-month stay in Roswell while building the abstract structure planted the idea for the residency—he is considered the very first Roswell Artist-in-Residence.
